Recent years have seen increasing numbers of bariatric patients who suffer from obesity or weight significantly in excess of typical weights for individuals. For example, persons having a body mass index of 40 or greater (or often more than one hundred pounds over conventionally recommended body weight), may be considered morbidly obese. Special surgeries are available for such individuals, and hospitals handling this medical condition typically have facilities equipped for providing physical support and assistance to such individuals for accomplishing typical and ordinary physical functions. Additional supports are needed because the increased mass imposes higher than normal loadings on commonly used devices such as toilet bowls, chairs, beds, and the like.
Additional supports are particularly needed to assist the bariatric patient with using bathroom devices such as toilet bowls. Many facilities use cantilever mounted toilet bowls, whereby one end of the toilet bowl connects to a support in the wall. Cantilever toilets facilitate cleaning and mopping of the floor. The other support devices include rails mounted above the toilet bowl to facilitate grasping by the bariatric patient in order to assist use of the toilet bowl. However, such entrance and egress supports do not provide support to the cantilever toilet bowl, and the full weight of the bariatric patient on the toilet bowl can lead to failure and collapse of the toilet bowl.
While facilities especially designed for treating bariatric patients include floor-supported toilets, medical facilities are finding an increasing number of bariatric patients admitted for other reasons. Typical hospital rooms are configured for bathroom devices supporting patients of average weights, and particularly cantilever toilet bowls. Yet these fail to adequately provide reliable support to a heavily loaded toilet bowl, such as may be necessary for a bariatric patient.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a device for selectively and conveniently providing support to cantilever toilet bowls that are subject periodically to high mass loading. It is to such that the present invention is directed.